Nearby
Friends is based on the software of a Chicago-based company Facebook had
gobbled up way back in May 2012 called Glancee as stated in “Facebook
acquires 'social discovery' service Glancee”, published May 5, 2012 9:29 AM
PDT by Edward Moyer, CNET News. Founded by Andrea Vacarri who stayed
on to become Nearby Friends Project Manager, Glancee was bought at a time when Facebook
also had purchased Instagram.

This
feature tells you if any of your friends are nearby, as in physically nearby.
But before stalkers delight, it’s not an app that turns your smartphone into a
tracking device, albeit that’s quite easily done anyway. Instead, you and your
friend will have to enable this feature on each other’s smartphones for it to
work, with your friend’s location being displayed on a map.

As
with all Facebook features, you can determine who can see you with very
granular controls that can be set based on your friend’s lists. Your level of
location awareness of your friends is also determined by the amount of
information you share as well. If you refuse to share your specific location
and instead opt to share only a general location i.e. the town you are in
instead of exact GPS Coordinates, you'll only get that level of information in
return from friends.

Thus,
by having this level of granularity, it makes sure that you and the individual
in your friend list are REALLY friends and they’re comfortable with giving out
their physical location. They’d
naturally only share your location information based on how much you yourself
are willing to share.

Finally
Friends Nearby can determine if your nearby friend is travelling, making it
possible to stalk them...or rendezvous with them via suggesting a rendezvous
point, whichever word you prefer to be comfortable.

All
nice features already found in most LBS like Foursquare.

Facebook more
comfortable with Mobile – Revenue is up and they are look towards the Future

Facebook’s
response has been quite positive; they’ve allowed Google+ to use FBX (Facebook
Exchange) their Browser click-metrics platform that allows advertisers to place
ads based on users Cookie based Browser activity as explained in the article “Say
what? Google will now sell Facebook ads”, published October 18, 2013 2:38
PM PDT by Desiree Everts DeNunzio, CNET News.

The
plan is clear. Wearable Computing is the coming future and the next evolutionary
step of smartphones. They’ll also use their Wearable computing devices i.e.
Smartglasses synched to smartwatches, to get news displayed in a HUD (Heads Up
Display) while they go about their business.

This
Glancee-esque feature Nearby Friends merely ties in the last bit of the
Wearable Computing revolution that’s coming; LBS, which has been ignored for
some time now. Foursquare is sure to get some buzz from this for sure!